


you don't owe me anything, you paid me well in memories

by openmouthwideeye



Series: The Imp's Wife [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/pseuds/openmouthwideeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Lannister always pays his debts.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Brienne wondered which of his bannermen Jaime had arranged for her to marry.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	you don't owe me anything, you paid me well in memories

**Author's Note:**

> *title from "Think of You" by A Fine Frenzy

When a breathless boy in smudged livery darted across the practice yard, jerking to a halt and trembling, Brienne had not known what to think. She had stopped mid-swing, likely terrorizing the poor lad, who was in the way of her blade. But he did not seem out of sorts by the dull sword, nor the unlikely lord’s daughter wielding it.  
  
“M’lord’s had a raven,” the boy told her eagerly, tongue darting across his chapped lips. “Says for you to come straightaway.”  
  
 _Dark wings, dark words,_  Brienne could not help but think.  
  
But that was for winter. Cold days spent huddling together, hiding from dark shadows cast by darker wings, enormous and pin-wheeling against a pure white sky. Wind-lashed nights exchanging whispers in the dark, and the sudden silences that lay heavier than all those fears confessed.  
  
The days were growing longer now, and the shadows felt less bitter cold. Spring would be here in another year.  
  
“In his solar?”  
  
The boy was nodding, already shuffling away to dart off on his next adventure.   
  
Brienne sighed, moving to the squat armory to sand down her blade. She tended it more cursorily than Ser Goodwin had taught her, and departed to her lord father still damp with sweat.  
  
By the time she arrived, fear was flicking tendrils around her heart.   
  
 _The war is won,_  she reminded herself.  
  
There was little any raven could say to upset the balance.  
  
Her father’s face was calm. He sat in the overlarge, carved chair at his writing desk, pursing his lips as he read a piece of heavy parchment. Atop it lay a small, curled slip written in a small, cramped hand.  
  
“Tidings from King’s Landing?” she could not help but hope.  
  
Her father shook his head, his gray eyes bewildered.  
  
“A messenger bore us a letter,” he told her, running his thumb along its edge as he studied the page. “I did not think it –“ he trailed off, mumbling, shook his head. “The raven came just after,” he said, “but I fear myself ill equipped to interpret it.”  
  
Brienne frowned, moving to stand beside him. His mind was like to wander, of late, but rarely did her father admit himself baffled. He was still strong and clever, the true Evenstar no matter how he sought to train her by asking her counsel.  
  
She read the raven’s note first. Battered by harsh skies and late-winter rain, the ink was nearly unintelligible, but Brienne saw the words clearly.   
  
 _A Lannister always pays his debts._  
  
Her breath caught in the beat her heart couldn’t finish.  
  
“Brienne?”  
  
Her father was looking up at her, steadiness and concern.   
  
She shook her head, willing away her weakness. It did not good to dwell on things since past.  
  
“The letter?”  
  
Her throat strangled the words as they escaped.  
  
Her father cleared his throat, as if he could lend her steadiness.  
  
“It would seem –“ he paused, scrutinized the letter once more before nodding, convinced of its contents, “An offer of marriage,” he announced.  
  
Her heart stuttered and stopped, started up again at an uncomfortable pace.  
  
She had not failed to notice the cracked red seal, half a lion swaying atop the dark cursive as her father raised the parchment aloft. The sliver of paper with House Lannister’s unofficial words felt scarred and careworn under her freckled fingers.  
  
“He did me no dishonor,” she whispered intently.  
  
The words felt rote on her tongue, and landed on well-worn paths in her father’s ears.  
  
“Brienne-“  
  
She had told him of it. Not at first, when the war was fresh and its wounds fresher, and all the heroes of all the songs she’d loved seemed pale and tarnished in her head. But she had told her father of her travels and her terrors, from Bitterbridge to her bitterest longings.  
  
He must know she did not speak untrue.  
  
“By my sword, by the Maiden and the Warrior and the Mother, he did me no dishonor.”  
  
No dishonor more than sharing a bedroll, when heat was worth all the gold in the Kingdoms and Sansa was pressed close against her other side, Ser Hyle against his.  
  
She had not told her father how Jaime had slipped his legs around both of hers, twining them together as her heart sped against his back. No more than she had revealed how she had wrapped her hand around Jaime’s bare stump, felt the heat race up her arm as he warmed beneath her.   
  
She told him about the kisses, though, on snow-frosted mornings. She told him how Jaime had touched her face, her hideous, sunken scar, and for a moment she felt that the songs need not always be summer.  
  
“If you speak true-“ her father shook his head, at a loss.  
  
Brienne knew what he would say.  
  
Jaime had done her no injustice, but he had ruined her prospects more than her coarse features ever had. Her reputation was tarnished in the icy Vale passes, sullied further with every kiss and caress, as their companions looked on. She could see it in the shadows of Ser Hyle’s eyes, read it in the pity in Lady Sansa’s sad smile. Hyle Hunt would not marry her now, not if Tarth hoarded sapphires in truth, and she laid them all in a satchel at his feet. Not Hyle Hunt, nor any respectable knight.  
  
It mattered little. She had set her feet on a different path long ago.  
  
She wondered which of his bannermen Jaime had arranged for her to marry.  
  
“Addam Marbrand?”  
  
She knew few of his men, and Ser Addam was the only name that came to her. He was capable, she knew. Jaime would not have it otherwise.  
  
“Daughter,” her father’s voice was low and serious. “The messenger bore this letter from the Lord of Casterly Rock.”  
  
Brienne opened her mouth, but found she had no words.  
  
“Queen Myrcella-“ she began, shifted her intent, “-he would not-“  
  
 _Casterly Rock?_  
  
“The Kingsguard are sworn to hold no lands,” she recited dumbly.  
  
It was all she could think to say. Jaime had never wanted the Rock. He had told her as much and more, before he took his place beside his daughter’s throne and they had said their farewells.   
  
But the Westerlands could not fall to some cousin, not when the imp still drew breath across the Narrow Sea. The crown held Casterly Rock until such a time when the Queen bore a son, and a second.   
  
 _Has Queen Myrcella set aside the vows, as did her lady mother?_  
  
“And to take no wives,” her father finished for her.  
  
She did not catch his meaning for several long moments. When she did, she took the letter in shaking hands. She did not recognize the script, but then, there was little occasion for writing as their little party struggled through the winds of winter.  
  
 _My dear Lord Selwyn,_  it began, enumerating his titles and achievements and slipping seamlessly into a promise of future prosperity. It spoke of efforts to rebuild, of new alliances formed, new alliances that  _could_ form.  
  
 _Some maester wrote this,_  she thought dimly.  _It does not sound like him at all._  
  
But there, the words that seized her heart and clasped hard, insatiable and unyielding as she leaked ink and blood.   
  
 _-the honor of your daughter’s hand._  
  
The parchment ripped and wrinkled in her grip, her eyes drinking the words.  
  
And there, beside another lion pressed in wax, the signature her father had read true:  _Ever in your debt, the Lord of Casterly Rock._  
  
Breathing was difficult, her heart was like to burst.  
  
 _-your daughter’s hand.  
_  
 _-the Lord of Casterly Rock  
_  
 _A lion always pays his debts._  
  
Her father laid a hand atop her own, and Brienne realized her left hand was clutching the arm of his chair, all stark white skin and pale freckles and the red scars lancing up her fingers. She forced her fingers open, ignoring the ache as she clutched her father’s arm instead.  
  
 _Jaime_ , her body sang to the tips of her hair.   
  
It was a dream. Sudden and dizzying, with inconceivable promises and laughter floating in air.  
  
“Brienne,” her father addressed her, brought her back. The solar was rich with sunlight, the fire crackling  _home_. “Would you have me-“  
  
“Yes,” Brienne broke in, inexplicably breathless. “If you will, father,” she tempered herself, “I would-“  
  
She could not stop the smile stretching her face.   
  
Her father touched her hand on his arm. Her other was still clutching the letter, as though surrendering the parchment might blot out its contents. She felt a girl again, this paper and ink more lovely than any lying rose brought by her betrothed.  
  
“Please, father, tell him I accept.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cruel and sadistic, I know. Review anyways?


End file.
